Hi Andre,
Well, you definitely have the score in your hand so how about starting to play music now ?
Sorry for being a little rude

Hey Schneider!! Thats no rude at all! I understand what you saying, but i have a great difficult to be more expressive in this kind of pieces, like this one and the Bach 999 prelude that i recorded a few weeks ago, do you have some advice to me work on this problem? Or have some other pieces that you recommend me to play to "loosen up" my expressiveness.

What is it about this kind of piece that makes it difficult to know how to find the degree of expressivity you want?

Hello Stephen! I found difficult because i practice a lot with the metronome and when i turn it off it is automatic to me to play in the same tempo.

Aha! So if you wanted to change tempo to add some expressivity, how would we go about finding the right-sounding places for that? Pieces with a clear melody with clear phrases can be easy to sort because if we think of a singer breathing at the end of a phrase, that makes a little break in the sound, and if we think of a phrase broadly and generalisingly as a rising and falling in energy, both volume and tempo (slightly!) then if we find the phrases we can at least start to think about ways to deviate expressively from metronomic stability.

And before somebody jumps in and tells you not to use a metronome, please keep using it but do learn to deviate from the accuracy you have achieved. Its much better from my POV to do it that way round.

What is it about this kind of piece that makes it difficult to know how to find the degree of expressivity you want?

Hello Stephen! I found difficult because i practice a lot with the metronome and when i turn it off it is automatic to me to play in the same tempo.

Aha! So if you wanted to change tempo to add some expressivity, how would we go about finding the right-sounding places for that? Pieces with a clear melody with clear phrases can be easy to sort because if we think of a singer breathing at the end of a phrase, that makes a little break in the sound, and if we think of a phrase broadly and generalisingly as a rising and falling in energy, both volume and tempo (slightly!) then if we find the phrases we can at least start to think about ways to deviate expressively from metronomic stability.

And before somebody jumps in and tells you not to use a metronome, please keep using it but do learn to deviate from the accuracy you have achieved. Its much better from my POV to do it that way round.

So how would we find the phrases in this piece....?

Yes Stephen! I have a lot of dificulty to play in a singable way, i am triyng to work on this issue, but i dont know what piece will be a good start to develop this technique, i believe in this piece the melody the stand out the most to me is in betwen bars 10 to 12 when there is sort of a conversation betwen the high and low melody , and it happens again in the bar 22 to the 25, am i right? or do you think there is others melodies in this piece that we can play with more expressives?

Well done on one of your first Carcassi pieces. These seemingly simple studies have so much going for them don't they.

I won't hijack the discussion you are having on phrasing but there are a couple of things that you might like to consider.

For me the main challenge with this piece is trying to make the scale runs sound as smooth and connected (legato) as possible. It's hard to tell from the camera angle in your video but it appears that you may be using your thumb for all the notes in the bass runs in bars 10 & 12 and bars 24 & 26. If so, you might like to consider using your thumb for the first and last notes only of each run and using i & m for the rest of the run. This could help make these bass runs sound more connected (it's very hard to sound legato with scale runs using only your thumb).

The first notes of each of bars 10 and 12 are actually quavers not semi quavers. This means they should be held twice as long as you are holding them (i.e. held until you come in with the second bass note - the D in bar 10 and the E in bar 12). I'm not sure which edition you have, but I'm working from the Schott edition and the higher voice rests help spell this out. The reason I mention this is that holding these two notes for their full duration will once again help make these bass runs sound more legato especially at the start of each run.

In terms of dynamics, the last two bars bars (i.e. the A, A7 and D chords) and marked as ff (fortissimo = very loud). Don't be afraid to really bring these three chords out.

I hope you don't mind me offering these suggestions? Overall I think you are doing a great job with this study. These tips are really just the 1 to 2 percenters if you like.

Well done on one of your first Carcassi pieces. These seemingly simple studies have so much going for them don't they.

I won't hijack the discussion you are having on phrasing but there are a couple of things that you might like to consider.

For me the main challenge with this piece is trying to make the scale runs sound as smooth and connected (legato) as possible. It's hard to tell from the camera angle in your video but it appears that you may be using your thumb for all the notes in the bass runs in bars 10 & 12 and bars 24 & 26. If so, you might like to consider using your thumb for the first and last notes only of each run and using i & m for the rest of the run. This could help make these bass runs sound more connected (it's very hard to sound legato with scale runs using only your thumb).

The first notes of each of bars 10 and 12 are actually quavers not semi quavers. This means they should be held twice as long as you are holding them (i.e. held until you come in with the second bass note - the D in bar 10 and the E in bar 12). I'm not sure which edition you have, but I'm working from the Schott edition and the higher voice rests help spell this out. The reason I mention this is that holding these two notes for their full duration will once again help make these bass runs sound more legato especially at the start of each run.

In terms of dynamics, the last two bars bars (i.e. the A, A7 and D chords) and marked as ff (fortissimo = very loud). Don't be afraid to really bring these three chords out.

I hope you don't mind me offering these suggestions? Overall I think you are doing a great job with this study. These tips are really just the 1 to 2 percenters if you like.

Cheers,
Paul

Hello Paul!!

Thank you very much for your advice, i am sorry for taking so long to reply, but this past month i was very busy at work and i didnt have much time to visit the forum.

I am trying very to hard to get everything smooth as possible, but now i am looking forward to study a new piece, which one do you suggest me to go next, to develop the topics that you brought up.

Thank you very much for your time analyzing my work!! Have a nice week

Hello Stephen! I found difficult because i practice a lot with the metronome and when i turn it off it is automatic to me to play in the same tempo.

Aha! So if you wanted to change tempo to add some expressivity, how would we go about finding the right-sounding places for that? Pieces with a clear melody with clear phrases can be easy to sort because if we think of a singer breathing at the end of a phrase, that makes a little break in the sound, and if we think of a phrase broadly and generalisingly as a rising and falling in energy, both volume and tempo (slightly!) then if we find the phrases we can at least start to think about ways to deviate expressively from metronomic stability.

And before somebody jumps in and tells you not to use a metronome, please keep using it but do learn to deviate from the accuracy you have achieved. Its much better from my POV to do it that way round.

So how would we find the phrases in this piece....?

Yes Stephen! I have a lot of dificulty to play in a singable way, i am triyng to work on this issue, but i dont know what piece will be a good start to develop this technique, i believe in this piece the melody the stand out the most to me is in betwen bars 10 to 12 when there is sort of a conversation betwen the high and low melody , and it happens again in the bar 22 to the 25, am i right? or do you think there is others melodies in this piece that we can play with more expressives?

Thanks

OK if I my answer my own question, the point is to look for what would be phrasing points if there were a singable melody, the kind that commonly falls into 4 bar groups. And to allow the energy (tempo and dynamic) of the piece to lower at such places, perhaps with a really small break, and to pick up again afterwards. Thus showing the shape that lies below the constant fast notes even in the absence of a melody as such. (No. 7 is another good example of a piece wanting this approach.) But then sometimes you may find that there is no underlying (normally 4 bar) phrase implication and you just get to keep the tension up until at last there is one again.

A lot of people talk about stopping over ring bass - good advice. You have good left hand but could stop some of the higher open strings ringing by dropping the left hand fingers to dampen the strings this will give a much clearer defined line. Changing img tempo - not sure imo I would keep the pulse but be expressive with big phrases lots of dynamics in the scale passages and dynamic contrast.
Sounds good

You have asked which study would I suggest next? If you are looking for a similar piece to No 14, then No 1 is worth looking at. It is a similar piece to No 14 (perhaps a little easier?).

However, I think No 7 would be a better to piece to move on to. Stephen Kenyon (listed above) actually has an excellent tutorial on You Tube in which he unpacks this study in great detail. And as Stephen points out in his reply above, No 7 will give you plenty of scope to further explore phrasing within the piece. No 7 is also a good study for practicing legato (I know when I studied this piece many years ago, my teacher kept stressing the importance of keeping it connected - I've still got his hand written comments in my book!!).